Most of us consider the American president to be the most powerful man on earth. And being commander-in-chief of easily the world’s deadliest war machine, in a way he is. Apart from the constitutional requirement of obtaining congressional approval for taking the US to war, his powers to conduct foreign relations and commit American troops to distant battlefields are virtually unchecked.

However, within America, the country’s founding fathers bound the president in a web of interlocking checks and balances that force him to submit to Congress and the Supreme Court at every turn. A tinpot dictator of a banana republic wields more authority over his people than an elected American president does, as we in Pakistan know to our cost.

A current and compelling example is the ongoing furore over Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Vacancies to America’s highest bench arise very seldom as judges are appointed for life, and there is no retirement age. Imagine Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry being our chief justice for perpetuity.

But Kavanaugh’s nomination has become contentious not just because he is widely seen by Democrats as a hard-core Republican zealot, but he has distinctly conservative values that are out of step with the mores of a socially and culturally evolving country.

Thousands of pages containing his judgements and views were handed over to committee members just hours before the confirmation hearings began by an administration that seemed hell-bent on seeing their man approved by the Senate before the crucial mid-term elections due in November.

Given the 11-10 Republican-Democrat split in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the obvious bias of its chairman, Senator Chuck Grassley, the nomination was considered to be a done deal, and its passage through the full Senate, with its 51-49 Republican majority, a mere formality. But out of the blue, a single brave woman has thrown a spanner in Trump’s plans.

Dr Christine Blaisey Ford, an academic teaching at two prestigious universities in California, exploded a bombshell with her claim that when she was 15 and studying at a Washington DC high school, she had been sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh.

Both gave their versions before the committee in highly charged statements. But while Dr Ford was nervous and occasionally tremulous, given the setting, she was clear that she was doing her “civic duty”, and had nothing to gain by allowing herself to be subjected to this ordeal.

As it is, she and her family have received death threats, presumably by Trump supporters, and been forced to move out of their home.

Kavanaugh, by contrast, came across as angry and frustrated at the possibility of losing the most coveted job in the American legal system. Again and again boasting of his academic and sporting achievements at school and college, he was often rude to Senators. Apparently, he was following Trump’s advice to “fight”.

This did not sit well with the Democrats on the committee, especially when he accused them of being part of a left-wing, Clinton conspiracy to avenge the loss of the 2016 election. By implication, he was accusing Dr Ford of being a willing pawn in this plot.

Riveted by the live coverage of the proceedings, I must have watched TV for ten hours, something I only do when there’s an exciting cricket match on. Even my wife, who’s not a news junkie the way I am, watched for a while with me, occasionally exclaiming: “That’s not fair!”

I explained that Kavanaugh’s nomination had nothing to do with justice, but everything to do with politics. With him on the Supreme Court for possibly decades, it was widely expected that his decisive right-wing vote on a bench of nine judges would undo years of progressive legislation, like the hard-fought women’s right to abortion.

The drama continued: just as the chair was about to call for a vote when Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona declared that he would vote for the nominee on the floor of the senate only after the FBI had been given a week to verify the two conflicting accounts before the committee. Apart from delaying the vote, this move has opened up the real possibility that the investigation, even if rushed, could find more damaging material against Kavanaugh.

Throughout his statement and the question and answer session, he had resisted a further FBI probe, claiming that he had already been cleared several times in the past. But the difference now is that at least more two women have claimed to be victims of Kavanaugh’s predatory attacks in the past. Male friends and acquaintances have chipped in with accounts of his loss of control after excessive drinking, something he denied before the committee. Should the FBI discover that either or both claims have substance, the nominee would be dead in the water.

Intriguingly, Donald Trump has agreed to authorise the FBI probe while there had been some speculation that he might not do so to protect somebody he described as “one of the finest men I have known”. However, he has given the Bureau a week to complete its investigation, raising the possibility that he is now rowing back from a judge now seen as a walking disaster. Clearly, the pressure of getting through the process by nominating his second choice before the November elections so he has a success to report to his right-wing base is mounting.

In fact, the whole process thus far has been an example of democracy at work. Whether one agrees with Trump and Kavanaugh or not, the grilling the nominee has been subjected to demonstrates the constraints on presidential powers. As we move forward to next week’s political theatre, I expect to be glued to the TV.

Watch this space.

irfan.husain@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2018